Will ‘Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder’ proposed for inclusion in DSM5 be the next child mental health epidemic?

The American Psychiatric Association is on the verge of following disgraced Harvard Professor Joseph Biederman’s ‘Juvenile Bipolar’ lead and condemning irritable children to a label of ‘Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder’ and ’off label’ antipsychotics.

The central characteristics of ‘Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder’ proposed for inclusion in DSM5 are childhood “irritability” and “temper outbursts” occurring, ”on average, three or more times per week”.1 Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder represents a disturbing evolution of the absurd and dangerous practice of diagnosing children, even very young children, with ‘Juvenile Bipolar Disorder’. Although not an official psychiatric disorder Juvenile Bipolar Disorder was enthusiastically and successfully promoted by disgraced Harvard University Professor of Psychiatry, Joseph Biederman.

Biederman, who was also Director of the Johnson & Johnson Centre for Paediatric Psych-Pathology research at Massachusetts Hospital and according to the New York Times is the “the world’s most prominent advocate of diagnosing bipolar disorder in even the youngest children and of using antipsychotic medicines to treat the disease”.2 He is largely responsible for the enormous growth in US antipsychotic prescribing rates to children including Johnson & Johnson’s very profitable antipsychotic Risperidone (brand name Risperidal). In April Johnson & Johnson were fined US$1.2Billion by an Arkansas court for making misleading claims about the safety of Risperidal. This followed similar outcomes in other US states.3

In 2011, US congressional investigations led by Iowan Senator Charles E. Grassley exposed that Biederman received at least US$1.6m in undisclosed fees from drug-makers from 2000 to 2007 and only revealed a tiny fraction of this income to Harvard University.4 The New York Times reports “court documents dating over several years that Dr. Biederman wants sealed showed that he told the drug-giant Johnson & Johnson that planned studies of its medicines in children would yield results benefiting the company”.5

Taking and not disclosing drug company money and planning beneficial research results is reprehensible behaviour. Harvard University’s decision to effectively give Biederman little more than a rap on the knuckles brings discredit to one of the world’s most prestigious universities.6 Perhaps Harvard was motivated more by the funding that Biederman and his cronies attract to the university than by the damage they bring to the university’s reputation. Harvard’s failure to take strong ethical action against Biederman has meant that his influence, although waning, is still considerable.

Thankfully Juvenile Bipolar Disorder is not officially recognised as a diagnosable condition in the current DSM (DSMIV). Supporters lobbied to have it included in the DSMIV, however the DSMIV development committee “found scientific support unconvincing and refused to do so”.7 Regardless, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of children have been diagnosed with the unofficial disorder and treated with anti-psychotics like Johnson & Johnson’s Risperidal.8 These medications “can cause serious complications – major weight gain, obesity, diabetes, cardio vascular disease and possibly shortened life expectancy. Sudden death has occurred in a few cases where excessive doses and/or multiple drugs were given to very young children.”9

The proposal to include Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder is in part a reaction to criticisms of the use of anti-psychotics for Juvenile Bipolar Disorder. The authors of DSM5 are proposing Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder as an alternative to the diagnosis of Juvenile Bipolar Disorder, using the rationale that this will help curb anti-psychotic prescribing rates to children. In effect, they are proposing a “juvenile bipolar light” disorder.

Given the unrestrained enthusiasm for prescribing psychotropics ‘off label’ to children exhibited by many clinicians, particularly paediatricians, the opposite is likely to occur.10 The inevitable outcome is that more children will be diagnosed and experience tells us the more children diagnosed with a ‘psychiatric disorder’, the more children are subjected to the cheap and convenient practice of speculative ‘off label’ prescribing.

The only sensible course of action for the American Psychiatric Association is to reject out-of-hand the notion of Juvenile Bipolar Disorder or any lighter version thereof including Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder. Failure to do so will drag the American Psychiatric Association into another epidemic of childhood drugging for which, unlike ADHD, they currently bear no responsibility.